Pet Injuries

Royalty

Confused, truth is what I choose
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Yesterday one of my moms small dogs fell awkwardly when he tried to jump off the couch and ended up hurting his back. They went to the vet and it looks like he possibly has a herniated/slipped disc in his lower back and he currently can't use his hind legs to walk. Naturally it's very sad but once I heard the amount of money it would cost to get the surgery to repair this it kind of threw me into turmoil. I wanted to make this thread to ask some questions about being a pet owner in a very tough situation and maybe get some feedback in regards to a case similar to this one.

Edit: Forgot to mention that he is getting the surgery.

Feel free to reply with anything constructive or with an answer to any of the following:

- Have you ever had a pet with a severe injury or one similar to this? What did you do?
- How much is too much to pay for a pet surgery or is there no amount of money that isn't worth it?
- Is it unethical to not get the surgery if the cost is just too much? Pretty much meaning putting the dog down.
 
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Triangles

Big Stew
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As an owner of many cats and breeder of many dogs, I've had quite a few experiences of ill or injured animals. When I was much younger, I had a cat aged 20 who broke her leg very badly. Despite her age, my parents paid massively for surgery and all the help she could get, but she died within a month of the accident. However, the surgery was fairly quick and she did not spend her last days in notable pain. More recently, the same happened with a considerably younger cat, and she had all the surgery possible but still walks with a heavy limp. Also, often in a litter of puppies there is one sickly 'runt' so to speak. A lot of time and effort is invested to keep this runt alive and as fulfilled as possible, despite probable lack of success. Over the years, a vast amount of money has gone towards the vets for operations, medicines of all kinds (currently one of my cats is on anti-depressants!), stomach pumping (puppies have a habit of eating something they shouldn't very often), and the like. I think every penny has been worthwhile, as a pet is not only a living being, but a family member and as such I think that if you would invest in care for a suffering family member, it is your duty to do so for a pet, no matter what the financial cost is. In my opinion, animals should live as happy and fulfilled a life as possible, and any costs which are required to achieve that are worthwhile. However, if I believe the animal would suffer discomfort from intrusive surgery, I would be somewhat sceptical about doing so depending on the circumstances.

Nowadays, my pets are insured, which is worthwhile considering the nature of spaniels and cats.
 

Skitty

i dont care if i ever come down♪
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If you don't put him down or get the surgery, you would be a cruel person.
 
Some hypochondriac idiots decided to give a shampoo shower to a 5 days old kitten , the kitten got shocked
and ran to the closest window of the apartment , it managed to jump up on the stool after one or two tries , it stood there for a while and then slowly started losing its balance and slipping because of its wet feet it landed 20 meters bellow on almost fresh Concrete left by the some water pipe improving workers earlier,
the cat somehow managed to survive but its back legs where broken and reshaped in the wrong way causing it to have a really weird movement and inability to run.
 
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My poor cat got cancer about 2 years ago. Did about everything I could for her, but she passed away since it had spread internally to where she wouldn't eat or drink. Still probably the saddest day of my life having to say goodbye.

But yeah, for me anyways, cost was nothing in trying to save her, even if it did eat up any money I had. She was my little kitten, so anything feasible I pretty much tried.
 

Asek

Banned deucer.
- Is it unethical to not get the surgery if the cost is just too much? Pretty much meaning putting the dog down.
coming from a family where money is pretty tight I can say that at least in australia if theres an option for surgery over having the dog being put down pretty much everyone goes with surgery. My current house is home to 4 dogs (2 big 2 small) and a cat (can't go outside because foxes live around the area). Out of those 5 animals 3 have required some form of major surgery within the last 24 months and it probably would have been 'smarter' to put those animals down (2 of the animals requiring surgery are 12 years old right now). Theres just something about putting your dog down that is just so painful you really cant do it. I don't think anyone can have the weight on their conscience that they could of saved their dog but chose to put it down.
 
I have always been afraid of this because my family is poor and we've had a lot of animals. We're actually in debt to the vet presently, it just gets pushed back what with my own terrible health and other problems. We love our animals beyond reason though and spoil them to our (and I think their honestly =/) own detriment. We go hungry at times and yet our animals eat literally as well as us, which is fucked up and kind of sad (I think it's because my mother is mentally ill though).

Our cats used to be outdoor cats but then my cat got attacked by some other animal and she nearly died, then we kept her inside ever since, especially since we moved to a bad area and then near a highway. She had to have surgery and she got very sick to the point the vet told us to just bring her home because she was fretting and refused to eat there, I thought she was gonna die but it turned out she was just homesick. She picked up really fast at home.

I think as a pet owner it is your responsibility to do all that is within your means to look after them, and if you're going to be a pet owner you need to be able to pay for their food and vaccinations and such. Beyond that, concerning major surgery, it depends on how much you value your pet and what your means are. If you can afford it easily then you should have it. I don't think there is anything wrong in someone for whom money is tighter and who would have to sacrifice A LOT or even go hungry to have surgery that might not even work opting to not have the surgery though, but it's certainly very sad. Humans come before pets, but if you can have both, you should, and you should do all you can. I love animals more than most people do (and do not cope with animal death well) so I feel like I can't answer this reasonably, but you should definitely consider as rationally as you can what you have to give up to pay for the surgery and compare it to giving up the life of the dog.

When it's a dog or a cat and there's a friendship there... I don't know, I've never had to put an animal down, but I can't imagine the pain if that day comes. My mom used to be a vet nurse and she had to quit because she couldn't bear the suffering she saw (abandoned and abused animals, very sick animals that needed to be euthanised, etc.) after awhile.

However, I have to reiterate, I know how it is to be poor and how difficult it is to come up with lump sums, and animal surgery is expensive, so if you know it is beyond reason (there's a difference between a grit-your-teeth-and-bear-it unwanted expense and the type of expense that is just way too much to worry about) then I think while what happened to the dog is sad it's understandable and it's not wrong.

Good luck and I'm sorry to hear about what happened to the dog =/
 
Fuck, sorry about that OP. I only clicked this because my dog has a little hematoma on his ear that needs to be drained, I wasn't ready for herniated discs. :(
 
We had a cat that turned up on out backdoor-step one New Years' Eve. He was as black as black could be, a very very big at too, not just fat (which he was) but generally a very large cat. It was raining so we took him in for the night and he spent the whole time meowing in the kitchen and jumping up at the door. We sent him on his way the next morning after some food, but he didn't find or even attempt really to make his own way home. Well he kind of did, but kept bumping into things. We then noticed his eyes were all cloudy, so he clearly (really bad taste I know) couldn't see as well as he's supposed to. Maybe it was cataracts, but he was really short sighted. My mum went out asking people on our street and other people passing-by if they knew anything about it or had lost a big, blind, black cat. No luck. We even took him to the vets to see if he was micro-chipped. Nothing.

So by then it was a few months down the line and he had basically adopted us lol. We came up with the theory (having never seen him before in our garden, where lots of cats pass through) that someone was fed up him for whatever reason so left him at our house, seeing as we'd only been in that house a few months. Previous owners must have saw a family and thought the cat could live a better life there. He did. :) He lost some of the fat weight and when he purred, oh my did he purr. Akin to a tank, I kid you not. When he was purring you could put you ear into his black fur and be entranced by the sound for hours. Well that was when he was well.

It was the very tail end of 2007 when he first turned up that wet night. He managed to just about cope very well for some years, plodding along, walking into cupboards and sunbathing in the summer. But in 2011 he suddenly got very ill. He wasn't interested in his biscuits and spent most of the time under a bed. He came pretty close to death but miraculously recovered back to pretty much full health (as healthy as a ~12 year old cat gets). It was probably around Easter 2012 when the beginning of the end came. He used to always go outside and scratch at the door whenever he needed to go outside and do a wee, but he started to do it in the house a lot more often. We thought at first this was just him getting senile, but the problem got worse and there were parts of the house that smelled really quite bad of cat wee. We even started putting him in a room with a litter tray every night but he just missed it completely. Then there was blood in his wee, and he was trying to wee all the time but nothing came out. Vets again. He had cancer. A tumour on his bladder. Explained everything. Surgery wasn't really an option, especially not at his age and otherwise condition. It was all about making the remainder of his life be as comfortable as possible. Twice it looked like he was near the end, but he pulled through once again. Suddenly though, things went downhill fast. One of his hind legs went completely limp. It was quite horrible to watch him struggle to get about. Vets gave us some anti-biotics, anti-inflammatory and steroid pills & creams. But he was in too much pain. He was suffering unnecessarily. His other hind leg went limp too and that was enough. We had hoped he'd die of his own accord in peace, but we couldn't watch him be like this. He was put to sleep in Spring this year (2013).

I hope this has been a nice yet emotional read for you all.

R.i.p Black Cat. Yes, that was his name.
 
:( That's so sad. Rest in peace black cat (there's definitely something charming about black cats). I'm sorry for your loss, thanks for sharing your story so that we too could know of your cat's existence.
 

Royalty

Confused, truth is what I choose
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My dog has recovered some bladder control and slight tail function but still nothing but feel for his back legs. Just thought I'd post an update now that it's been about two weeks since the surgery.
 
About 10 years ago my cat was run over in our drive way. My mother thought she hit something, so after running over my cats leg once, she reversed and did it again. My cat then hobbled to find a corner to die in, all shriveled up and bleeding. We took him to the vet ASAP and he ended up okay, but died a few years later of nose cancer and arthritis at 17 years of age. It costed around $1300 for surgery my cat, but a pet is basically family so we always did whatever we could to keep him.
 

Myzozoa

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When I was a child, we had a lovely orange cat called Ginger, she was a truely top cat, and we also had one of her sons too and he was a top cat as well. Ginger got feline leukemia, and the treatment was really expensive, and made her look like an ugly cat instead of the pretty cat she was before (her face got scarred and she lost a bit of weight). She lived for a few more years and was pretty happy imo and still very affectionate, but as a child her face scared me so I didn't spend as much time with her as my other cats. Anyway, my parents could afford to pay for treatment so they did, I think it probably cost about $3000 all told though I don't really recall as it was a long time ago.

Don't really have an answer to Op's question as it basically comes down to how you feel about your pet and whether it is worth it to you. I do think that if you're going to have pets you should try to at least get them to vets regularly and expect to pay for standard things like flea and tick medicine and de-worming tablets as needed.
 
one experience that still bothers me to this day is the loss of my sweet kitty named Maslow.
I got him when he was just a kitten, he was white with gray splotches, and had a crooked tail.
i moved several different times with him, and never had a problem, but when i moved back in with my dad Maslow decided to wander off one day in the summer.

he came home and staggered inside, but i had just assumed he got too heated from running around. i gave him fresh water and he seemed pretty normal once he rested up a bit.
a couple of weeks later, i walked into the living room and found him all huddled up. he seemed kinda off, and once i got closer i noticed the pink on his ears, nose, and just his skin in general was yellow. very yellow. i rushed him to the vet thinking it was going to be no big deal, they would fix him up right? got to the vet and she told me that there's no helping him. that he must have gotten into some anti-freeze and basically poisoned himself. the reason his skin was yellowing is because his kidneys were shutting down.

she gave me two options (but really one...) either have him go through a medical procedure that had a very low chance of saving him, and would also be painful and miserable for him, or put him down. she told me if i would have brought him in the day i noticed him stagger inside, i could have saved him. (if only i hadn't assumed he was ok) i sat in the vet's office for a long time, but realized he was going to have to be put down. i would have definitely paid to save his life if there wasn't a pretty sure chance of him dying through it. i couldn't take him home, and i could bear to think of him suffering before death. it was the hardest thing i ever had to do. there were many many nights i couldn't sleep thinking about how i made the decision to put my cat down.

if there is any good that came out of this whole situation, it's that i'm super attentive to the cats i have now, and pay extra attention to how they are feeling. i also don't let them outdoors, because they could get hit by a car, get into poison, and catch diseases from feral cats. it's just generally not a good idea.
 

Cresselia~~

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- Is it unethical to not get the surgery if the cost is just too much? Pretty much meaning putting the dog down.
Um, from the point of view of a former vet medicine student (I quit), I say "Of course yes! Because this is curable, instead of absolutely hopeless."
But at the moment, I think you can visit several other vets to confirm that this one really isn't lying/ money grubbing.

If your dog restores some functions, it is a good start. Especially when it comes to waterworks-- one thing that vets don't really deal with and some female vets can get sad when they see something wrong with some pet's waterworks.
However, I wouldn't say it's the end of the world if he doesn't walk again, being lame itself doesn't harm other organs.
Making sure other organs are functioning properly is way more important than the mobility of your dog.

I can't tell you the price because I don't live in the US/ UK.
But IF you live in the UK, you can try asking RSPCA because theoretically, they would only ask for a small donation instead of the medical fee.
(I used to work in a UK animal clinic, and that's what the vets will tell poorer owners to do.)
 
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A couple years ago we woke up in the morning and found our 6 month old puppy laying half-dead on the floor. We took her to the hospital and she got put in IVs and she was in critical condition for like 3 days, but she ended up recovering and is now in perfect health (more so then her older brother). So to make it short, yes, the surgery or whatever medical care they need is worth it.
 

Asek

Banned deucer.
Man thats a 6 month old puppy ofc your gonna try save a dog thats got its whole life ahead of it!

On another note one of my dogs has fully recovered from the broken leg it got from tripping over 6 months ago so thank god I don't have to keep it inside anymore (the amount of hair a border-collie sheds like omg i had to vaccuum every day :L)
 
about 6 months ago, one of the 2 cats i currently own fell out of a tree and broke his hip. it was pretty tough, and he got surgery and eventually came out of it alright. also the other cat went missing for a month and a half before casually walking back in with a feather on her face

i was going to post the story of my old cat, named Gussie, but i still tear up when i talk about her too much, so not gonna go through that
 
All of the cats my family has are outdoor cats. They are either mostly inbred, or walk-ons. Over the years, plenty of them have stopped showing up, and new ones show up. Our care for them consists of laying out food and water, and them gobbling up whatever leftovers we toss out that they find interesting. You might be able to tell that these cats are not family pets in any way whatsoever. They are convenient work animals; we keep them around, and we never have to deal with mice problems.

Perhaps unsurprisingly (especially with their inbred nature...), only one or two kittens of a litter will grow to adulthood. Out of four or five. It is sad, though nowhere near as sad as it was when I was younger and had also gone through this less. Now its just the norm :( A bad winter a few years back took most of them by sickness. This might have actually been a good thing though, as they've bounced back much healthier due to less (no?) inbreeding.

We never take these cats to the vet. As said, they are not family pets; rather they are a convenient part of where we live. The privilege of going to the vet is reserved for the family dog.
 

Jukain

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All of the cats my family has are outdoor cats. They are either mostly inbred, or walk-ons. Over the years, plenty of them have stopped showing up, and new ones show up. Our care for them consists of laying out food and water, and them gobbling up whatever leftovers we toss out that they find interesting. You might be able to tell that these cats are not family pets in any way whatsoever. They are convenient work animals; we keep them around, and we never have to deal with mice problems.

Perhaps unsurprisingly (especially with their inbred nature...), only one or two kittens of a litter will grow to adulthood. Out of four or five. It is sad, though nowhere near as sad as it was when I was younger and had also gone through this less. Now its just the norm :( A bad winter a few years back took most of them by sickness. This might have actually been a good thing though, as they've bounced back much healthier due to less (no?) inbreeding.

We never take these cats to the vet. As said, they are not family pets; rather they are a convenient part of where we live. The privilege of going to the vet is reserved for the family dog.
Man you're a dick to those cats...

I seriously cannot fathom a person treating a cat that way.
 
Man you're a dick to those cats...

I seriously cannot fathom a person treating a cat that way.
You act as though I beat them with a tire iron. If you want I could go and do that so that you may be correct in your assumptions. But I won't; they are too adorable.
 

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